Five Caribou Coffee stores in the metro Milwaukee area, including two in Brookfield, are set to close next Sunday as part of a nationwide paring of the Minneapolis-based chain's locations, the company and employees said Monday.

In all, 80 "underperforming stores" in the U.S. will close on Sunday, the company said in a statement. | April 8, 2013»Read Full Article(97)

Facebook has started charging its users as much as $15 to send messages to the inbox of popular people outside their friends circle. Charges to email a stranger start at $1 and go up to $15, depending how many followers the recipient has.

If I'd read this on April Fool's Day, I would have thought it was a joke, but as the photo below shows, it isn't. | April 8, 2013»Read Full Blog Post(13)

Novelist Christina Schwarz, who grew within hailing distance of Pewaukee Lake, returns to the area this week with a new book that begins in her hometown.

In "The Edge of the Earth" (Atria Books, $25), recent college graduate Trudy Schroeder turns her back on a possible life in Milwaukee at the turn of the 20th century for an unexpected husband and life at a remote California lighthouse. | April 8, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

Madison - I'll cut right to the chase: Buoyed by a superb cast and a strong script, Laura Gordon is giving a career-defining performance in Madison, where Forward Theater is staging David Lindsay-Abaire's "Good People," under Jennifer Uphoff Gray's direction.

The terrific first scene sets the stage. In a trash-littered alley in South Boston - the notoriously tough and insular working-class neighborhood known as Southie - Margie Walsh is being fired from her $9.20 per hour job because she is constantly late for work. | April 8, 2013»Read Full Article(1)

Bon Iver frontman Vernon - who's also got a pretty good thing going with Volcano Choir, a separate band he put together with Milwaukee's Collections of Colonies of Bees - formed the Shouting Matches, a blues-rock trio, with Phil Cook and Brian Moen. The group's debut album, "Grownass Man," was just posted for streaming Monday on NPR's website. It will be pre-released on iTunes Tuesday and go on sale April 16. | April 8, 2013»Read Full Article

Over the weekend, readers who read the obituary for Cissie Peltz, an important figure in the Milwaukee art community, emailed to ask if the Peltz Gallery will continue. Peltz died on Wednesday. We published an obituary Saturday.

The short answer is yes. The Peltz Gallery will likely continue, according to Cissie's son David Peltz and gallery assistant Cheryl Olson-Sklar, who has been helping to run the gallery while Peltz was ill. | April 8, 2013»Read Full Blog Post

The sounds of the late documentary filmmaker Les Blank's polka documentary will be familiar to anyone who grew up around small-town beer halls, listened to Fritz the Plumber or ever attended Polish Fest.

Blank, who died over the weekend at the age of 77, was not well known. | April 8, 2013»Read Full Blog Post